Dock Dispute Causing Waves
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Long Islander News photo/David Weber
Pictured is the northern waterfront of Lloyd Harbor, north of Plover Lane.
By Jano Tantongco
Jtantongco@longislandergroup.com
A resident’s plan to build a dock has been denied three times, prompting a four-year legal tussle between him and the Village of Lloyd Harbor.
In the third, and most recent, decision, which was made in January, Nassau County Supreme Court Judge Daniel Palmieri ordered the village to issue a building permit that would allow Richard Kleinknecht to move forward with his plans to build the dock on his waterfront property off Plover Lane.
The village struck back weeks later by filing an appeal, effectively halting the judge’s order for now. Village officials are currently in the process of perfecting the appeal before a deadline in June.
As of May 1, the Village of Lloyd Harbor has spent $69,072 in attorney fees to litigate the cases, according to village records.
Kleinknecht’s attorney, Mineola-based Robert Lynn, said the village’s expenditure to deny his client’s request “simply defies common sense” since, he added, some of Kleinknecht’s neighbors have docks on their property.
However, the attorney representing the village refuted that claim and said the village is defending the land because Kleinknecht doesn’t have building rights for the property.
Locust Valley-based John Ritter said the land was previously owned by Friends World College, the world-wide educational institution that later became LIU Global. In an indenture agreement dated December 1990, building rights for the land were donated to the village and stipulations were put in place to preserve the open space, Ritter said.
Among those were terms that the lands be kept in their present state to preserve wildlife and wetlands, including language that specifically bars structures like docks and piers.
Ritter added that the neighboring docks are “not affected by the indenture” that they may predate village code regulating docks.
Kleinknecht owns the 2-acre property, but agreed to the covenant and restrictions when he purchased the land in 1998, according to a purchase contract co-signed by Kleinknecht that was made available to Long Islander News by Ritter. The declared covenants and restrictions include a portion listing requirements to the conservation stipulations set in the agreement eight years earlier.
The dispute between Kleinknecht and the village dates back to September 2013, when Nassau County Supreme Court annulled a village planning board decision to deny Kleinknecht’s application for a floating dock. The village never appealed the court’s decision.
Kleinknecht then went to the village’s zoning board with the proposal and was told he needed variances in order to move forward with what was then a plan to build a fixed pier with a floating dock at the end.
The zoning board denied the proposal, resulting in another lawsuit in 2015. This time, the court upheld the village’s ruling, resulting in an appeal filed by Kleinknecht.
Kleinknecht has since submitted a revised application with the village that he contended conforms with zoning regulations and would not require any variances.
Details on the planned dock, including length and type, were not immediately available as of deadline. Lynn said Tuesday that he did not have the details and that his client could not be immediately reached.
